Money was a problem for everybody.

  This post-war country was in the process of constructing a socialist society after all.

  As a young illustrator and a competing athlete, I cobbled together a relatively comfortable living.

  Relatively, in the wreckage of war.

  The lotto back then was a fiction, but me and my buddies tried to hit the big money somehow anyway.

  We tried to recycle builder’s ceramics. We produced lamp shades for sale. We welded metal furniture. We searched abandoned German banks, trying to refurbish and sell the large crystal mirrors we found there.

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  These never ended in complete financial success, and there was a lot of quibbling.

  I knew I’d have to act alone this time.

  Every day I thought for sure the summons had come, but happily each day it hadn’t.

  Two weeks had passed and the beautiful autumn continued uninterrupted.

  I didn’t have a clue about the money.

  I went on as if there were nothing wrong.

  I trained. I played bridge regularly. I drew and published comics and other stupid joke drawings.

  Seemingly without notice, I led on the appearance of a carefree, Roman life.

  Three weeks had passed without the summons coming and autumn was drawing to a close.

  Subconsciously, I felt that this was already in actuality probably the end.

  It was finally starting to dawn on me what an awful sum a hundred grand was.